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School’s out Friday

Now this is special.

This video is just a little something the students at my school put together to celebrate the fact that it was their last official school day on Wednesday of this week.

Milly Davison and Elly Dixon were the brains behind it all, inspired by a video shown to them by Media/Art  teacher Emma Cleine. Here are Milly’s words about how it was achieved;

We were inspired by a video on youtube that we saw, and decided to try to recreate our own version. The planning process was a little bit tricky in working out how best to get everyone to be in the right places at the right time, as well as how we would be able to film it steadily. We filmed at 7am on a cold rainy morning before school, with a set of iPod speakers duct taped to the top of the camera playing the song through at full blast. After a single practice run through we started filming, and on the third take we had a near perfect shot!

Aren’t they just brilliant. You have to know that staff and students from Yr 5 – 11 were all in the school hall watching this at the start of their last assembly. The final shot in the video ends in the foyer of that hall with a picture of the door. As soon as it finished they all came charging in to thunderous applause. Schools really are special places aren’t they? Such community exists within its walls.

They really are a very special group of girls. It was this group who helped me begin my Web 2.0 journey really. They were in Year 9 and I worked with them on the creation of digital stories in reponse to the Literature Circle books they were studying. They produced wonderful work back then, and you can see how they have evolved into inspiring film makers today. Who knows what will lay in store for this special group of very talented (and incredibly fun to be around!) girls. We will definitely be missing them. Good luck to the Toorak College Yr 12 students of 2009!!

Here’s the video that inspired them. It was produced by students from the University of Quebec.

Below is a QR code from Kaywa QR code generator. Now, how to read it? Next part of the puzzle!!

 

qrcode

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Google Wave – initial impressions

I’ve been playing around with Google Wave for a few days now,  trying to work out what it can offer us as a new vehicle for communication. My initial impression is that it is real time email. If you are online at the same time as participants in a Wave you can use it like an instant messaging service. To improve your functionality you really need to install Google Gears. (thanks Richard for enlightening me about this!)  I didn’t have this installed and found that I wasn’t able to embed Youtube videos or drag and drop pictures into the Wave. Once Google Gears was installed I was able to do a lot more.

It really only makes sense if you are using it with someone else. Trying it out by yourself is pretty unexciting. You need to be able to see what can happen when there are others working with you. Collaboration is what Google Wave is going to be useful for and I can see a use for it for students and staff. The Gravity gadget that has been developed by SAP Research in Queensland offers some insight into how business will use this tool. You can easily apply this type of scenario to school based staff and student collaborative use.

I’m by no means an expert on Google Wave, but there are some features about it that I like. Embedding videos and dragging and dropping pictures is easy and they are going to enable you to do the same with Google Docs. I’m keen to have a go at using Rosy, the translation feature, but first I have to figure out how to get it added to my contacts so I can drag it into a conversation when it is needed. (I think that’s how it works anyway!!) Then I have to find a non English speaking Wave user to see if Rosy translates conversations as effectively as it promises to do. If it did, it would be a huge breakthrough for communication with classrooms that previously had been inaccessable due to language constraints.

Take a look at the video I made to show you what it’s like. It’s not brilliant, and you’ll probably need headphones to hear the commentary, but it will give you some idea of what a Wave is like. (I made it in a hurry last night!)

Daniel Tenner has written a good post; What problems does Google Wave solve? Worth a read.

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School’s out Friday

Twelve million people or so have viewed this on YouTube, so I’m probably showing you something that you’ve already seen. I am part of the rest of the worlds’ population who has not seen this 3 year old explain the finer points of the plot of Star Wars until today. I’m pleased to let you know that I enjoyed every second of it!

There is something so endearing about young children and their attempts to describe their experiences. I remember very well my son when he was 3 yrs old. He  would act out the opening scene of Toy Story 2 in our loungeroom, commando rolls and all,  while it was playing on our TV set. I only wish that I had captured it on video for posterity’s sake. I would have been able to embed it here for you all to enjoy.

This weekend I intend to familiarise myself with Google Wave. I got an invite on Wednesday but haven’t had a lot of time to fiddle due to Speech Night commitments at school. Now that it’s over, I can dedicate a bit of time to learning the finer points of this new approach to communication. I’ll write a post letting you know my thoughts once I feel more adept.

Weather looks to be sunny here in Melbourne for the weekend so hopefully I’ll get a nice injection of Vitamin D. Hope you have a good one!

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VHS forever!

Timely post on the ninemsn website considering the content of my last post.

Want to remember the good old days of VHS, floppy disks, cassette tapes and recorders, corded telephones with a dial and not a keypad, cameras with film and typewriters.

Well, here’s the solution!

Never_forget_VHS_tattoo

Pretty drastic as far as I’m concerned, but 13 photos on the ninemsn site suggest that others feel pretty strongly about the loss of old technologies and have opted for the tattooed varieties.

Won’t be happening on my bicep or forearm anytime soon!

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Yes, we deleted the VHS collection.

Discussion in my office last week.

“Jenny, did I hear you correctly when you said that you had deleted the entire VHS collection? ”

“Yes, you did.”

“Does this mean that the Maria Callas version of Medea isn’t there?”

“Yep, that’s right. It’s gone.”

“Oh dear. You know it’s just what I need for the students……….”

“How about we take a look at YouTube and see what’s there?”

“I’ve never used YouTube. Do you think it might be there?”

So we took a look. And guess what? It’s there. Uploaded in 10 minute parts. Perfect for this teacher who only needed a 10 minute segment that spanned part one and two. Even though YouTube streams really fast at my school I downloaded these parts to ensure that the teacher would have no trouble when using it in class this week.  Result: Happy teacher who now can see the positive use of YouTube for instructional purposes. 

Deleting the VHS collection has been the cause of some angst for members of staff, but the final nail in the VHS coffin had to be hammered in. You can’t sustain a dead technology. VHS players aren’t available anymore and we can’t keep pretending we can rely on old resources. I know some of them were good and probably worth keeping, but we’re just going to have to try and source them via other means. Conversion is a time consuming labour intensive exercise and I could not justify the work involved to facilitate this. YouTube and TeacherTube are amazing; the content that is there is pretty mind boggling really.  Australian Screen and resources available from The Learning Federation are other fabulous source points for video that teachers could be using with their classes.

Don’t get me wrong. VHS tapes still lurk in offices around the school. But they are not in the library and not part of our catalogued resources. They’ll die a natural death when the players that support them curl up and die.

We’re at that point in Libraries where decisions need to be made about what stays and what goes. Non fiction purchasing is the other area where we as a library staff have questioned purchases. We are waiting to see what happens in the e book market and how the handling of that is going to equate with Library delivery of services. There are huge question marks around all of that right now and I don’t think I’ve seen anyone with an answer just yet. It’s been announced that the Amazon Kindle will be available internationally in the near future. Right now, my money’s on the predicted Apple tablet as being the frontrunner to take the lead with e book delivery. It seems only natural to integrate the book publishing market with their iTunes library.  

Interesting times and huge ideas for Libraries to grapple with. It is hard trying to predict where things are going and what the best course of action is to take. What is clear to me is that you can’t sit on the fence forever. At some point tough decisons need to be made, even if it does cause some angst.  

You know, I’ve been thinking. I think all teachers should be provided with a copy of “Who moved my cheese?” and it should become mandatory reading. If you haven’t read it, get to your local library and check out a copy. Well worth it.

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School’s out Friday

I just turned on my computer, opened Twhirl (my twitter desktop client) and saw a tweet from Breaking News announcing Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009.

When he was elected into office I felt hopeful. He is such a marvellous orator. Someone who makes you stop and listen carefully to his words. It’s interesting discussing his influence with the students in my class. They too feel hopeful about world politics with Barack leading the United States. The Nobel committee said this about him;

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future”

and this;

“His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.”

When the committee was asked why they awarded the prize only 8 months after Barack had taken office, the reply of committee head Thorbjoern Jagland was;

“It was because we would like to support what he is trying to achieve. It is a clear signal that we want to advocate the same as he has done”

‘The values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population’. Yes, we are more similar than we are different. People everywhere love their families and friends and want the best for them.  Here’s hoping this message sent by the Nobel committee will help diplomatic relations between countries and engender a new form of leadership.

Have a good weekend. Do something with friends and family.

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Google Wave explained

Like thousands of others, I was waiting for a Google Wave invite, but none arrived. Even publicly begging for one on Twitter didn’t do me any good. Here’s hoping I will get one eventually, because it does look really interesting. The above video explains what Google Wave is and what it can do. The people explaining it are developers from Google and I think they do a pretty good job explaining it in a way that most would understand.

Epipheo Studios created the above cool little video that is doing the rounds as well as a means of explanation of Google Wave. I wonder if they have got their invite yet considering they have had over 200,000 views of this on YouTube! They are most definitely helping Google out in terms of promotion.

Waiting to join the wave. In the shallows right now. Not even close to catching one I bet!

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Misconceptions

Seth Godin’s latest blog post reminds us how we can be relaying misconceptions to the students we teach.

The internet certainly presents us with possibilities. We can become creators and have our work appreciated by others. We can make a name for ourselves and reap the rewards that come from this. But we can also become part of the long tail of creators who are vying for voice and attention who don’t get noticed and don’t reap rewards.

Seth quotes a report from Charles Blow in the NY Times about the music industry;

“A study last year conducted by members of PRS for Music, a nonprofit royalty collection agency, found that of the 13 million songs for sale online last year, 10 million never got a single buyer and 80 percent of all revenue came from about 52,000 songs. That’s less than one percent of the songs.”

Pretty staggering figures really. So for every young band out there vying for an audience, the odds are pretty much not stacked in your favour.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t be encouraging our students to use this medium to be heard. What we should be doing is presenting them with the   realities of  the medium. You can’t expect that loading your latest and greatest effort onto YouTube is your entry point to worldwide noteriety. You need to face the reality that if you are going to take a crack at it you need to explore the medium to it’s full potential. You need to know how to market your online presence to full effect.

Even more reason why educators need to get up to speed. These are skills that need to be taught. The business model is changing.  It’s a new world out there.

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School’s out Friday

Some of you who follow me on Twitter might have noted the tweets I sent out yesterday related to a lawnmower incident. No body parts missing unlike the video above! If you missed them here’s a bit of a recap;

Lawnmowing_incident-_Twitter_update 

It was pretty dramatic at the time I can tell you. This was the second time (ever!) that I had mown the lawn. I was removing the catcher and noticed a big clump of grass still left inside the lawn mower. I naively thought I’d just reach in and remove it. It didn’t cross my mind at all that the reason it’s called a lawn mower is because it mows the lawn and has sharp rotating blades inside to enable it to do this! Suffice to say, it wasn’t long before I discovered this fact. Lawn mower was left running after I’d extracted my hand, saw the blood and ran to the kitchen sink all the while screaming ‘Oh my God, Oh my God’, or something  to that effect.

Thankfully, my finger was intact, just badly cut and badly bruised. After receiving  some much needed comfort from my children, I was back out there finishing off the job. This time, when removing the catcher, I decided to leave the offending clumps of grass to their fate!

A birthday for me this weekend then back to school on Monday.  Have a good one and stay safe!